panasonic pt-ae700e lcd panel made in china

The Panasonic PT-AE700E doesn"t really stand out in the style sweepstakes, but it"s not hideous either. It"s a no-nonsense, clean looking silver box, with its only apparent design element the vertical air output grilles on the left side of the front face. These nicely balance the lens, the tiny remote control signal receptor and a small joystick lens control on the right side. The front facing exhaust fan also means that the projector can be placed on a narrower site than those with side vents. The unit is quite light, weighing only 3.6kg so it"s quite easy to move around if you so desire. Note that there"s no included carrying case, however.

The PT-AE700E is easy to set up and operate, so you won"t have to spend hours reading the manual before you"re up and running. Its 2x optical zoom lens lets you adjust the image size to match the room layout and screen dimensions. It has a wide range of throw distances so that even in a fairly large room, you can get an extremely good quality image whether you"re setting it up on a coffee table in front of your viewing position, or above and behind it.

Setting up a projector can be difficult in odd shaped rooms (such as the one this was test in), but the PT-AE700E simplifies that complication with the inclusion of a joystick vertical and horizontal lens shift control. So if you have to set up the projector on a bookshelf that isn"t quite square on to your screen, you can move the image, without moving the projector. Horizontally, the lens can be shifted a maximum of 25 per cent of the width of the screen and vertically up to 63 per cent of the height of the screen. If you"re adjusting both positions of the projected image, the percentage of movement is roughly halved. Since the lens moves within the projector housing, there is no distorion of the on-screen image, unlike adjustmenst with digital keystone correction -- although the projector does have a vertical keystone distortion which can be corrected to ±30° of the angle of tilt.

It has the standard array of terminals for DVD players, PCs and game machines (including Scart), but unlike most low end projectors, the PT-AE700E is somewhat future-proofed in its inclusion of HDMI input. Unfortunately, the HDMI cable is not part of the package, but if you invest in one, you"ll be compatible with all high-definition digital sources. If you have DVI sources, DVI - HDMI adapters are available. It also has a trigger terminal, so you can connect it to devices such as an electric screen. No stand-alone audio capabilities though.

With some advanced technology and the PT-AE700E"s high-definition 1,280x720-pixel resolution, Panasonic has pushed LCD technology to a very high level. The 1000 lumen lamp and its "Dynamic Iris" optical system with AI techology yield brightness and colour variations that are quite subtle, so images seem very realistic

Panasonic says the intended lamp replacement interval is 3000 hours, which is neither at the top nor bottom end of the lamp-life scale, but it does drive down the cost per viewing hour.

All up, we couldn"t find much to complain about with the Panasonic PT-AE700E. There are certainly cheaper home cinema projectors on the market, but for its image quality, ease of set-up and HD widescreen capabilities, this projector leaves many of its more fancied and more expensive competitors for dead.